Lacunae
by AnotherSpoonyBard
Summary: In anatomy, a lacuna is a cavity, discontinuity, or depression in bone. More broadly, the term refers to any unfilled space or gap. In the wake of the Winter War, the Gotei 13 is perforated to the foundations—many of its officers are gone forever. It falls to the new Sōtaichō to repair the breaks. Or: in which Shunsui fights with C46 a lot.
1. Chapter One: Primis

_Disclaimer_ : As always, nothing you recognize is mine.

* * *

 _Lacunae_

A Bleach Fanfic

 _Chaos Theory_ AU

Chapter One: Primis

* * *

First day of spring—  
I keep thinking about  
the end of autumn.

-Matsuo Bashō

* * *

 _One week after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

"The Gotei 13 is in grave shape, Kyōraku-taichō."

Shunsui blinked up at the pale panel concealing the sage's face. This one was inscribed in blocky, utilitarian characters with the number 35. Frankly, a statement like that was rich coming from one of the Central 46. This incarnation of them had been in place for slightly less than five years in total, but they already seemed to be taking great care to impress upon him who was in control of whom in this situation.

Which was really kind of funny, since they were essentially telling him to do something they weren't capable of.

He folded his arms into his sleeves. The attendant in front of the audience chamber had asked him to remove his hat. It was sort of annoying now, since the lights were focused on the part of the room where the visitor stood. It only made it that much more difficult to tell anything at all about the forty sages arranged in concentric circles around it, each successive ring elevated over the others. The six judges sat highest and furthest back, because that was how the Central 46 conceived of leadership.

They didn't really need to inspire devotion when there was so much fear at their disposal, he supposed.

"That it is," he replied lightly. "We're without six captains out of thirteen, and two vice-captains. And of course we don't currently have a Sōtaichō, which means that we've been more or less decapitated, as it were."

The casual tone he used to report all of this didn't go over well; he could practically _hear_ more than half the room stiffen. Good. They needed to be uncomfortable.

He certainly was. Retsu-san hadn't really thought he should be leaving the Fourth yet, with all the damage he'd taken in the fight against Aizen. While Shunsui didn't think he was as badly off as all that thanks to her expertise, he wasn't here because he wanted to be. A summons from the Central 46 just wasn't something that could be ignored. And no sooner had they finished sentencing Aizen than they summoned him.

Shunsui knew why. They knew why. They were just wasting his time because they could. And they found it important for him to _know_ that they could. The sages and judges both here were aware that they were essentially second-best, so to speak, appointed to their positions because it was necessary to replace the ones Aizen had killed. Yama-jii hadn't bothered to go through them for anything while the war was still going, and so his death was the first chance they'd had to assert themselves over the Gotei 13.

"Are you taking this at all seriously?" 35 asked, the tremor in his tone betraying both disbelief and nerves. The 'his' part was easy to figure out. All fifty people in this room were men, down to the guards. The way it had always been. Shunsui remembered when Yama-jii had been considered eccentric for allowing women to attend Shin'ō and learn shinigami skills at all.

He might have spent a little more time entertaining the thought of letting these people meet Retsu-san and see what they made of that, but he knew he had to play nice here. "Of course I am, Seijin-san. I was at the battle that took most of their lives, as I'm sure you'll recall."

Yama-jii's funeral had been yesterday. Shunsui had lived a long time—but never a day when his teacher didn't. Not until a week ago.

The reminder of his participation in Aizen's demise was enough to quiet 35. One of the others—23—took up the thread of conversation instead. "It has come to our attention that Yamamoto-sōtaichō named you his successor in a conversation that took place the day before the battle."

Shunsui hummed, withdrawing one of his arms and using the hand to scratch at his whiskers. He'd trimmed his beard before the ceremony, but it was starting to itch. "We might have had that discussion, sure."

Though the tension was receding, he could tell that they were not particularly impressed with his answers. That was good, though. He didn't want them too wary of him. Shunsui had never had any great love for the faceless men that told all the rest what was required and what was forbidden. That lack of fondness had soured further after…

Well, after Ise-san.

But they didn't need to know that.

"As you are no doubt aware, Yamamoto did not have authority to decide who the next Sōtaichō of the Gotei 13 will be. That power belongs to the Central 46 alone."

Well. Apparently a bit of damage control was in order, or they were likely to throw him out of here and pick Jūshirō just to be contrary.

Not that Shunsui would have resented that, in itself. But Jūshirō was ill, and Shunsui did not imagine that the job of being Sōtaichō was one that would do anything but put more strain on whichever of them took it.

"I'm sure he knew that, too," he said, bobbing his head agreeably. "Insofar as sensei was preparing for contingencies, I expect he just wanted the chain of command to be clear if something happened on the battlefield, which it did." That was, of course, a lie—it was obvious that Yama-jii's intention had been that Shunsui inherit the position upon his possible death and didn't really give a damn what the sages made of that.

 _Yes, yes, it's all fine. I know my place._

These people were exhausting.

"An understandable precaution." That was one of the judges; his panel said 42. "And, this council has determined, not an inappropriate one. Which is why we are appointing you Sōtaichō in the wake of Yamamoto's death."

Well, it was good to see they could be brought around to the point eventually.

Shunsui was quiet for an appropriate amount of time, letting his head tilt down and his eyes rest on the floor. One deep breath in, and then out.

When he returned his attention to the sages, it was to nod soberly. "I will execute the office to the best of my ability."

That, at least, was completely true.

"See that you do," 42 replied. "And fill the vacancies in the ranks as soon as possible. We will be waiting to approve your selections."

Of course they would.

With a bow slightly shallower than it should have been, Shunsui accepted the dismissal for what it was an exited the chamber.

Apparently he was supposed to magically conjure up eight new top-ranking officers from what was left of the Gotei 13. This was going to be interesting.

* * *

"So how does it feel to be on the other side of the desk?"

Shunsui groaned, laying back and folding his hands together behind his head. The engawa at Jūshirō's house wasn't the most comfortable of surfaces, but he prided himself on being able to sleep pretty much anywhere. "What do you think? I'm here instead of there."

"Sure," Jūshirō replied, "but it's past working hours, so I think you can be excused for that."

Working hours. He'd probably have to start caring about that sort of thing again. At least for a little while. Long enough to guide things to the point where the Gotei 13 was running like a well-balanced water clock again, instead of the fits and starts and half-limping thing it was doing now. It was going to be a hell of a lot of work.

Shunsui hummed, extracting one of his hands and wrapping it around the neck of the sake bottle instead. They'd toasted the fallen already; it had been a while since they'd had to do that. Not since they thought Isshin was dead, actually, and Kaien before him.

They'd never had so many to toast at once.

"What are you going to do?" Jūshirō asked, taking a small sip from his own cup. Retsu-san advised against him drinking much, so he'd probably switch to tea pretty soon.

Shunsui would not. "Do? Well, there's a lot to do. The first thing I'm doing is putting both Kurosakis, Rangiku-san, Izuru-san, and Hinamori-san on extended leave." There was more than one kind of damage the war had done. When Retsu-san was finished, the physical damage would be basically gone.

But the other damage… that didn't go away as easily. "You want me to add Rukia-san to the list? One of those Arrancar had Kaien-kun's face, right?"

Jūshirō thought it over, compressing his mouth into a thin line. "I think… well, let me talk to her about it. She seems to be handling it fairly well at present. If anything, she's quite worried that Ishida-san's recovery is slow. But we both know seeming well and being well are not the same."

They sure did.

"Of course, that's knocking a lot of the fukutaichō off the list of people who are currently able to help run the place, which only makes finding replacements for the ones we've lost more urgent." But still—he couldn't just expect those who were closest to the traitors and the dead to get over it and keep going as though nothing had happened. It was unfair and in the long run would probably do the Gotei 13 as a whole more harm than good.

"There aren't enough shinigami with bankai to fill the gaps," Jūshirō noted. "Even if we acted like that was the only requirement for the position, which it's not. There are six empty captaincies. We have… four non-captain shinigami with bankai."

Shunsui nodded from his spot on the ground, staring at the ceiling over his head without really seeing it. "Abarai, Madarame, Chōjirō-san and Kurosaki Karin."

She was an entirely different issue, one he was going to need to enlist some help to deal with, and quickly. At least if what Kisuke-san had told him was true. Shunsui didn't really have any reason to doubt it.

"I think Kurosaki-kun is much too young," Jūshirō noted. "She's belonged to the Gotei less than five years in total. Even considering how desperately we need officers…"

"Agreed." Shunsui rolled onto his side, making it easier to lift his sake dish to his mouth and take a drink. "She doesn't have the experience necessary to be a captain. I don't think Ikkaku-san's ready yet, either. He's had his bankai for a while, but he still thinks it's a secret."

"They all do seem to have been living in Zaraki-taichō's shadow, don't they?"

There wasn't any denying that. "I'm going to talk to Chōjirō-san, but the First is kind of…" Shunsui gestured with his dish, careful not to slosh any of the sake over the side.

"His home," Jūshirō finished. "He looked… especially unwell, at the funeral."

He had. Yama-jii had taught Shunsui and Jūshirō. They were his successors. But Chōjirō-san was something else. He'd served the Sōtaichō. Pledged his life to that service. It wasn't a completely different problem from the one Ikkaku had, really. Being an especially talented subordinate did not a leader make, and there was a perceptible difference between people who had what leading required and people who didn't.

Probably about half the difference was the _desire_ , but that wasn't all there was to it, either. "I'm not going to force anyone to let me nominate them for promotion," Shunsui said. "That's just asking for things to fall apart later."

"Abarai-san seems like the most solid choice," Jūshirō observed, which was an indirect agreement if Shunsui had ever heard one. "I know he's quite committed to the Sixth, but promotion is a natural step for him, I think."

It wasn't really hard to figure out that Renji had his heart set on surpassing Byakuya someday, and Shunsui was pretty sure he could convince him that captaining his own division was one way to keep going about that. Besides that, he'd grown a lot over the last few years. It might be that he'd be willing to do it without much convincing at all.

"You're probably right about that. After that though… I think I'm going to have to start looking outside the Seireitei."

Jūshirō finished off what was in his dish, then set it down on the low table with a soft _clink_. "Sensei pardoned Kisuke-san and some of the others before the battle, didn't he? I believe that was how he got them to switch the false Karakura town with the real one."

"He did." The sake stung Shinsui's tongue when he swallowed it, the bite of it lingering for a few moments after. "That's one of the ways I'm going to go. Isshin's another. After that… I don't know yet."

There was a thought turning around in his head, but he knew without having to ask that the Central 46 were not going to like it. Which was why it was all the more important that he go out of his way to exhaust the most appropriate channels first.

"I know that look, Shunsui. I understand that you don't like them, but it would be better if you didn't antagonize them on purpose."

Shunsui snorted. "Antagonizing them is unavoidable if I want to get this place back to anything like normal function. I just need to make sure I do it in a way they can't get around."

If he also happened to _enjoy_ it, well… who was to know but him?

* * *

 _Two weeks after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

"Sōtaichō—the Twelfth Division has delivered the first batch of recordings. Would you like to watch them now, or later?" Chōjirō moved out of his bow, but lingered respectfully at the threshold. He wasn't the type to enter the office unless specifically given permission to do so.

Shunsui had gotten tired of that sort of thing a long time ago, but despite being around the same age, Chōjirō apparently never had. Jūshirō would surely tell him it was a matter of personality and not age. That was probably it.

So he beckoned the other man inside with a motion. "In a minute. First I wanted to talk to you, Chōjirō-san."

Permission granted, Yama-jii's fukutaichō stepped inside, his stride the clipped, professional march of a lifelong soldier. He stood straight in front of Shunsui's desk, but now that he was closer it wasn't hard to pick out the inconsistencies. There were dark rings under his eyes, a tension in his frame that Shunsui knew wasn't there just because of _his_ presence. Yama-jii had been much more authoritative, and Chōjirō here had existed comfortably beside that for centuries. The old man hadn't been the type for friends, really, but if he'd ever had one, his vice-captain was probably it. Never mind what they'd both say about service and loyalty.

If Shunsui and Jūshirō had been the kind of students that approached being sons, Chōjirō had been the kind of retainer that approached being a friend—minus a few barriers that never got knocked down. It was understandable that Yama-jii's death was hitting him hardest of all.

There wouldn't be much time to mourn until the Gotei 13 was out of the straits it was in, though. Chōjirō knew that just as well as Shunsui did. Souls in the living world needed konsō. Hollows needed purification. The balance needed maintenance. And all of that needed supervision, adjustment, monitoring—all the bureaucratic nonsense that wasn't really nonsense at all. That fell to them.

"You look tired, Chōjirō-san."

The other man stiffened perceptibly, then blinked, almost forcing himself to relax. "I am capable of carrying out my duties, Sōtaichō."

Shunsui offered him a lopsided smile. "Oh, I know. I'm relying on it, in fact. But you still look tired."

He waited. This was not the way Yama-jii would have handled this situation, and Shunsui knew it. He wasn't Yama-jii. That would take some adjusting for everyone involved.

"…it has been a long… month," Chōjirō said at last, his expression uncertain. His need to understand what his superior officer wanted drove him to dare actual eye contact with Shunsui.

Good.

He nodded slowly. "It has. And I think the next few will be even longer. The Seireitei isn't showing it, but the Gotei, well… we're damaged. The Central 46 wants me to wave my hand and fix it, but it doesn't work like that, as I'm sure you know."

The point wasn't so much to inform Chōjirō of anything he hadn't already figured out—he was clever enough to have reached all the right conclusions on his own.

The point was to show him that Shunsui preferred to think with company, and that _his_ company counted.

To his credit, Chōjirō didn't take long to catch onto the fact that this was meant to be a conversation, even if he looked more uncomfortable by the second. "No," he said, drawing out the syllable uncertainly. "It doesn't."

"It's not just the lack of officers, either, though that's obviously the biggest problem," Shunsui continued, shuffling a few of the papers around on his desk. He could usually find what he was looking for, but the thing was a mess, and he had to admit that the tedium of it all was making his progress extremely slow. He hated that his office was just _his._

"There aren't enough prospective captains, are there?" This was ventured with a little more confidence.

Shunsui shook his head. "No, there aren't."

Chōjirō shifted his weight; it was the first time his posture had deviated from straight-backed rigidity. "I don't want to presume, Sōtaichō, but… might you be about to ask me if I would fill one of those vacancies?"

It was hard not to feel sorry for how awkward that sounded. Like he had to drag the words out of somewhere they were anchored deep in his guts.

Finding the form he was looking for, Shunsui slid it out of the stack to his left and placed it in front of him. Returning his eyes to Chōjirō, he resisted the urge to laugh. It really wasn't _that_ funny, considering the circumstances, but he _did_ look a lot like a very wary mongoose. One that wasn't sure that the snake in front of it was one it could handle.

Shunsui leaned his chin into one of his hands, his outer kimono rustling against his haori as he leaned forward. "Do you want me to ask you that?"

"I will… do my duty to the Gotei 13 to the best of my ability," Chōjirō replied.

Well… that was a rather obvious nonanswer. The funny thing was, it was probably the only kind of answer Yama-jii ever needed out of him.

"I'm sure you will, Chōjirō-san," Shunsui replied. It was clear enough that even though his sworn duty to Yama-jii was gone, he took it seriously enough to extend it to the projects and work that the old man had built his entire life around. Whether he'd do what he was asked to do wasn't a question at all. Whether he should _be_ asked to do certain things was much more open. "But there are a lot of duties that need doing right now. For example, I need someone to make sure the First Division keeps running in as close to the usual way as possible while I focus on rebuilding everything else."

Chōjirō was studying him, now, not oblivious to the implications of his statement. "Then you would have me choose which duty to fulfill?"

Shunsui sighed, straightening slightly in his seat. "Of course I would. Since I know you could do either job, it comes down to which you'd prefer. No one with the skills does as well at something they hate as something they love." At least not in this situation.

The fukutaichō contemplated this for a long moment, eyes falling back to the floor. "Eijisai-dono saved my life," he said. The words were slow again, still dredged up from somewhere uncomfortable—but given the subject, that was unsurprising. "And many others, but… I was trying to stop the flames. To… sacrifice myself for that purpose. But he knocked me aside and did it himself. I have… had difficulty thinking of anything else for two weeks. I'm not sure if that will ease, or if I will spend the rest of my life reminded of it every time I—"

He shook his head. Shunsui remained silent, knowing the pressing wouldn't get him anywhere right now.

"You have succeeded him in his post, and I think that is right." Chōjirō's hands flexed at his sides, balling into fists before loosening again. "It's what he wanted. He believed you were worthy of the position he had once filled, and I can do no less. There are many things about running the First Division that are unique and difficult, and many things about being Sōtaichō that I am not certain it is possible to be prepared for. Though I have never held the office myself, I have been close to it for a very long time. I have insight that I believe may prove helpful to you—and I… request the opportunity to remain and assist you. This division is my home, and more than any other part of the Gotei 13, it is Eijisai-dono's legacy."

Ordinarily, Shunsui would have been tempted to make a joke here, to say something to lighten the mood. But he wasn't oblivious to what it had cost Chōjirō to share those thoughts, and he wouldn't make less of that than it was.

"I'm honored, Chōjirō-san," he said instead, sliding the form he'd taken from the stack all the way across his desk. "That's the fukutaichō appointment form. If you'd fill out your half of it, and have one of the others file it, then I'll be glad to have your help from here on out."

The breath that left the other man was obviously tinged with relief; he promptly bowed deeply at the waist. Shunsui tried not to sigh himself. Chōjirō was a respectable person in a lot of ways, but he could already tell this was going to be… tiring.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, Kyōraku-sōtaichō."

* * *

 _Three weeks after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

He was already getting tired of holding meetings in his office. The enforced formality of sitting at the big desk while the other person felt obligated to stand clashed with Shunsui's style, and frankly he thought it made most people uneasy. That was understandable, considering that a summons here used to be the kind of thing that mostly meant someone was in trouble. Yama-jii hadn't really held private audiences with anyone except his three most senior captains and presumably the members of his own division.

"Let's take a walk, shall we, Renji-san?" Planting his palms on the wood in front of him, Shunsui pushed himself out of his seat, moving past Renji and heading out the door.

The Sixth's fukutaichō, understandably a bit confused, hesitated for only a moment before following him.

The Sōtaichō's office was on the upper floor of the divisional office building, granting him a rather sweeping view of the Seireitei, or at least a pretty big chunk of it. It was all very… lofty. Not the place to have a discussion as frank as he hoped this one was going to be.

Renji was one of the most straightforward people Shunsui had ever met. It seemed like poor form to handle this in a way that didn't honor that.

It wasn't until they were outside the office building entirely that he spoke, though, allowing his eyes a moment to adjust to the bright light of high noon outdoors. Some of the troops were out in the practice yard, running kidō drills. Genshirō-san looked to be supervising as well as he could, but young shinigami with spells were often more than a little bit difficult to nudge in the right direction. Shunsui didn't bother stifling his smile when a _byakurai_ went wide of the target and left a smoking hole in the fence instead.

From the laugh that Renji quickly turned into a cough, he found it similarly entertaining.

"So, Renji-san. How's progress going towards that goal of yours?" Shunsui asked it in a mild tone of voice, unsurprised to sense the other man stiffen next to him.

"You, uh… you know about that?" he asked. Perhaps he thought he was going to get reprimanded for it, though that was about the furthest thing from the truth.

"I know about a lot of things," Shunsui replied easily. "You can relax, by the way. Wanting to surpass a taichō is a good goal for a fukutaichō to have. It's a pretty good goal for any shinigami to have, really." As long as they went about it without too much venom or violence anyway.

Frankly, even venom and violence had their place.

Renji relaxed slightly, then shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, I kinda stopped thinking about it for a while, what with the war and everything. Not completely, just—other things to worry about, you know? Er—Sōtaichō."

Shunsui folded his hands into his sleeves, dropping back so they were walking more at an even parallel. "You don't have to call me that, Renji-san. You can just talk to me like I'm anyone else."

"Can I?" Renji snorted, sounding skeptical. "I'm not really sure I should."

"Then consider it a personal favor. I prefer it when people just say what they want to say, the way they want to say it." Shunsui arched an eyebrow, but elected not to force the point any further. "You said you worried about other things during the war. What kinds of things were those?"

"Mostly whether or not we were gonna win it?" It came out like a question, which was understandable. The initial query had been extremely vague on purpose, after all. "At least until there was fighting to do. Then I guess it was mostly getting myself and anyone else around out of it alive. That kind of stuff." He paused, brows knitting. It warped the tattoos across his forehead. "Why?"

Shunsui shrugged. "I just wanted to know what kinds of things you prioritized over a goal you've had for a long time. It's important to be able to do that."

"Uh… sure. I guess. Seems kinda like the obvious thing to do, though."

Perhaps to Renji, it did. His priorities were clear, simple, and even logical and dutiful, to a certain extent. But not everyone was capable of looking beyond themselves in that way. And not everyone's first priority had been the success of the mission. In some cases, it was only because success was a background requirement of what they really wanted that they thought much of it at all. Others hadn't even gone that far. Victory was unimportant compared to the method of achieving it.

"And if I were to ask you to become taichō of the Seventh? Would changing your priorities around be the obvious thing to do then, too?"

Renji stopped dead in his tracks, and so Shunsui turned to face him, still smiling. The noise of kidō practice had since faded, but he could still faintly hear the crash of another target falling. Renji looked like he might have _been_ the target—stunned.

"Surely you considered the possibility?" Shunsui continued, the smile inching wider. "You're an experienced officer, well-respected by your division, with bankai, and Byakuya-san agrees that you're ready to lead your own division."

He shook his head slightly at that, almost a double-take. "Wait—he does?"

"He does. I happen to think he's right." Shunsui tilted his head, his had throwing one side of his face into shadow. "It might be harder to keep your goal in sight, in a different division. But it's also a step forward, don't you think?"

"I—yeah, but…" Renji blinked. "Can you give me some time to think about this? I don't think I have an answer for you right now."

He didn't, but Shunsui already knew what the answer was going to be. No skin off his teeth to delay it a bit longer.

"Of course, Renji-san. Take whatever time you need."

* * *

 _Term Dictionary_ :

 _Seijin_ \- 聖人 – "Sage." The sages of the C46 don't ever get titled in canon that I know of, so I used the word for sage which corresponds to a holy man or saint, rather than the more academic type of sage, since the whole Soul King/balance thing has religious overtones like whoa. The 40 Sages and 6 judges of C46 are all anonymous, so Shunsui addresses them by title. Somewhat less formally than he should, given his use of –san.

* * *

And here we go. I'm kinda informally calling this the Reconstruction Arc, because, well... clearly the ranks are in need of some reconstruction. Most of this first fic will be from Shunsui's POV, though some scenes might get other people if necessary.

Like always, reviews are appreciated, but not at all mandatory.


	2. Chapter Two: Secundi

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* * *

 _Lacunae_

A Bleach Fanfic

 _Chaos Theory_ AU

Chapter Two: Secundi

* * *

 _One month after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

There were some things that had to be seen with one's own eyes.

Shunsui stepped out of the Senkaimon and into the living world, alighting on the ground with a soft step. So this was the real Karakura Town.

Reaching up, he adjusted his hat to shade his eyes from the sun, admiring the modern buildings with the sort of leisure he hadn't really been able to afford during his time in the false one. Shunsui had always enjoyed checking in on the living world every hundred years or so; it never failed to impress him how utterly _different_ things could become in that time, the turning over and over of life serving to propel everything forward like an enormous wheel, constantly in motion. Soul Society was utterly static by comparison, but then… the most influential people there didn't necessarily have expiration dates.

He wondered, distantly, whether he counted as one of those people now.

Certainly he intended to leave a mark, in his own way.

* * *

"No." Shinji shook his head immediately. "I ain't goin' back. Not to Soul Society. Not after—" The headshake repeated itself.

Shunsui didn't need to ask what he was talking about. He knew what had happened to Hiyori, and he knew the two of them were especially close. Chances were, Shinji blamed Soul Society for it, at least in part.

He wasn't even wrong to do that, really. The Central 46 had wanted to lock them up in the Central Great Underground—for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and acquiring power that they hadn't asked for and didn't want, that just so happened to grant them Hollow reiatsu. And the masks to go with.

"We really need captains right now," Shunsui said honestly, glancing over the whole group of them. Back when they'd been members of the Gotei 13, some of these people had barely known one another. But he could see in the way they stood that things had changed.

They did _stand_. Shoulder-to-shoulder with each other, a united front against an intruder, whatever his intentions might be. They closed ranks, seven pairs of eyes staring him down.

Kensei shook his head. "Sounds like your problem, not ours."

Automatically, Shunsui sought out the cracks, the places where their wall was least solid. It wasn't anything he had control of, really—whether he explicitly wanted the information or not, whether he had any intention of using it or not, he _saw_ it.

Shinji was the center. Most of them would follow him, one way or another, and Shunsui knew there was no making them go his way. If Hiyori had survived the battle—if she'd been anything but bisected by Sōsuke Aizen, there might have been a chance. Shinji's sense of personal responsibility for not catching on faster to his fukutaichō's betrayal might have driven him to try repairing what had been damaged. But the damage was so much greater now. He'd lost someone who mattered to him, on a personal level, and he wasn't going to go back to a place saturated with bitterness and memory.

So Shunsui looked for the outliers instead.

"Has Central 46 really given you leave to contact us for this purpose?" The set of Hachigen's mouth was neutral below his mustache, but his eyes were keen.

That, Shunsui could work with.

"Not yet. I was planning on asking for forgiveness rather than permission, if you take my meaning." He shrugged. "They won't have a lot of choice, with as desperate as we are to fill the ranks. I'm not here to force anyone to do anything. Just to ask if there's anyone who wants to come back." He scanned down the line again. "You might think we don't deserve your help. On one level, you'd be right. But we do need it—and you deserve your lives back, if you want them."

Shinji scowled. "Hiyori deserved her life back, too. Ya might need us, but we sure as hell don't need _you_." He turned, stepping into _shunpō_ and leaving the building.

The center cracked, the rest of them began to disperse, too. Kensei left, muttering something under his breath, and Mashiro followed him. Rose hesitated for only a split second before departing, leaving Lisa, Love, and Hachi.

"He's thinking of asking Urahara for one of those gigai," Lisa said, pushing her glasses up her nose with her index finger. "The ones that sap your reiryoku until you're human and stuck in it. _Most_ of us are considering it. You've got a lot of nerve asking us to come back, taichō." Her tone was sharp, but in a way that he recognized in Lisa.

Still, the news surprised him. They'd obviously become much closer than even he'd managed to guess, if the grief was having this kind of effect on them. But then again—perhaps it wasn't _just_ the grief. A century away from their lives, their divisions, all the rest of their friends and families, and the final blow being the death of one of their own… Shunsui could understand the desire for a different kind of life after that. A life away from the reminders.

It had never been a route he seriously considered taking, but he knew he was the stranger one, for that. There was a reason so few shinigami lived to be his age, and it wasn't just power.

Lisa traded a look with Love, then shrugged. "Anyway… I'm not going back either. I figured you should know that." She studied Shunsui steadily for a moment, her eyes uncharacteristically serious behind the glasses.

No—not uncharacteristically. Not for the person she was now. Only for the one she'd been then.

Pushing a breath through his nose, Shunsui faced the only two that remained. "It's not just the vacant posts," he said, his eyes moving back and forth between them. He thought he _might_ have Hachigen, but Love was going to take a little more work. "There's a shingami. Karin Kurosaki. She's a very talented young woman, but… that Arrancar bit her. Anzparrejar, the one that some of you fought. I don't know if Kisuke's told you this, but it did to her what was done to you. And there's no one there who can teach her how to handle that. Not unless one of you comes back."

He folded his hands into his sleeves and waited.

They'd understand, if he gave them a moment to think about it. Without a way to get a handle on that change, Karin wouldn't be able to control the power. And if she _lost_ control of it, there was no way Central 46 would be any gentler on her than they'd been to any of the Visored.

"I would… like to return," Hachigen said, speaking quietly. Not so quietly that he waned it to be secret, given that Love was still standing right there. But enough that Shunsui could read the slight hesitation there. "Given my lack of bankai, however, I do not believe I will be able to assist much with the root problem."

Shunsui shook his head. "You let me worry about that. I'm sure the Corps would be happy to have you back, one way or another."

Love crossed his arms over his chest, glancing behind him. "I'm gonna have to think about it," he said. "I'm not ready to give up on being a shinigami like some of these guys, but that doesn't mean there's much for me in Soul Society, either. I'll get in touch with Kisuke if I change my mind. And the girl—I'll mention her. Might bring somebody around, I don't know." He paused a moment, then met Shunsui's eyes squarely.

"Thanks. For not pushing. Probably could have guilted us a lot harder if you wanted to, but you didn't. I appreciate that."

Shunsui blinked. "Who, me? I think you're overestimating me, Love-san."

The other man snorted. "No I'm not."

* * *

"Hey. Taichō."

The voice came from over his shoulder. Shunsui paused, halting in his steps. He was outside the Visored's warehouse, now, and had been just about to _shunpō_ back in the direction of the senkaimon.

Still… he couldn't claim to be surprised. Smiling to himself, he turned back around. "It was good to see you, Lisa-chan." She hadn't been his fukutaichō for all that long when everything happened, but she _had_ been his friend.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Not inclined to playfulness today, then.

"I belong here," she said abruptly. "I didn't used to, but a hundred years—I do now." A certain hesitation lurked under the certainty of the words. She wanted him to assuage it, the almost-guilt.

It was something Shunsui would do gladly.

"I see that," he replied benignly. "I'm glad. It's good to have people to depend on. A place to belong."

A harsh snort escaped her, and she shook her head, whiplike braids curving in the air. "Yeah. I guess. But look—you gotta forgive Shinji. We don't hate _you_." Her lips pressed together in a hard line; she brought her arms up to cross them just under her chest. "None of us do."

Shunsui nodded slowly, just one bob of his head. "I know that, Lisa-chan. You don't have to explain yourself to me."

She hummed, somewhere between agreement and something a bit more noncommittal. "How's Nanao?"

"The very best fukutaichō the Gotei 13 ever did see," he lilted in return. "In no small part because she's always trying to fill your shoes, I think."

Lisa rolled her eyes at him. "Don't bullshit me, taichō. I was a menace and that was why you liked having me around. If I know the first thing about Nanao, it's that she's the opposite of a menace. Have you told her yet?"

Ah. He'd almost forgotten that Lisa knew part of that story. Shunsui hadn't always been the best at holding his tongue when he'd had too much to drink. Not around people he trusted, anyway.

"No," he replied, raising both hands to shoulder-level when her glare turned hard. "Yare, yare, Lisa-chan. I _do_ plan to tell her. It's just… never been the right time." He was beginning to suspect there never would _be_ a right time and he'd just have to tell her at the wrong one and hope for the best.

Lisa seemed to share the thought, if the impatient tap of her finger on her bicep was anything to go by. "You can't keep it from her. She has the right to know."

He didn't really want to have this conversation. Fortunately, he was rather good at steering them, and so he didn't have to. "You know… you could always come visit her, if you wanted. I don't know if she'd say it, but I'm sure Nanao-chan would enjoy that."

He'd succeeded in startling her, from the way her eyes widened and her teeth shut with a click. She'd been about to say something else, then aborted it. Instead, the silence stretched for several long moments.

"Yeah, maybe." Meeting his eyes, Lisa tilted her head, then lifted one arm up away from the other. She flicked a lazy salute.

"See you around, _Sōtaichō._ "

"Goodbye, Lisa-chan."

* * *

"Yoruichi's in, but I'm not. You know as well as I do that I can't be anywhere Central 46 gets any say in what I do."

Shunsui blinked. Rarely ever was he the preempted party in a discussion, but of course Kisuke would have known exactly what he was calling about. Or that part of it, anyway. Clearly, they'd already had the discussion amongst themselves.

Propping his elbows onto his desk, Shunsui folded his hands and let his chin fall atop them. "You never let them control anything you did before. I can't see your location making much difference in that."

From the other side of the screen, Kisuke smiled. It was neither particularly humorous nor happy an expression. "It's not a matter of location so much as position. There are things to prepare for, Kyōraku-san. You know that."

So he did. Among the things Yama-jii had left behind was an awful lot of information. It meant everyone who knew what was coming had to play a long game with an indeterminate end.

"Is there anything I can do to facilitate your work, then?" Shunsui knew better than to try to inhibit Kisuke's progress.

He considered that for a moment, his thumb moving back and forth over the arch of the handle atop his cane. Shunsui wondered if he knew he was doing that. Probably not—everyone had involuntary tics like that, especially when distracted.

"I'd like an empty lot in the Rukongai. Somewhere between the Fifth and Tenth Districts, if you can manage it."

Shunsui asked the obvious question by lifting an eyebrow.

Kisuke shrugged. "Tessai and the kids are going to need somewhere to live. And I'll be needing a workshop."

"And you think that will keep Central 46 out of your business?"

The other man shook his head. "No. I think it will keep them out of _your_ business. Buy it under your family's name. Say it's for a retiring retainer or something. You've done that kind of thing before, haven't you?"

So he had. Shunsui felt himself smile. "Right under their noses, is it? I'd be happy to."

"Glad to hear it." Kisuke paused, tilting his head. "…There's something else you want to ask me."

"There is." Shunsui moved his eyes back down to his desk for a moment, dragging the stack of unfilled taichō appointment forms towards him. Ikkaku and Yumichika had been by yesterday, with a rather improbable idea that nevertheless might not be impossible. An idea it was beginning to look like he'd need. But there were questions in need of answers first. Before he could seriously consider anything in the vicinity.

"Kisuke-san, what's the difference between a Visored and an Arrancar?"

He watched him consider it. Not the question itself, but why it was being asked. Put it together with what he knew of Shunsui's recent visit to the living world, which he'd made no attempt to hide. And then with the obvious—the Gotei 13's predicament, the phenomenon of defections in Aizen's army—all of it.

"What's the difference between a Hollow and a Whole?" Kisuke rejoined.

Shunsui shifted, leaning into one hand instead of both, letting his jaw rest against the heel of his left. "A Hollow suffered some kind of trauma in life that manifested over a period of time as a literal emptiness in the soul. A Whole didn't."

Kisuke shrugged. "There you have it. Substitute the words, throw in a few adjustments in timing and the exact ratios of reiatsu types, and you have the difference. There's nothing different between Arrancar and Visored that can't be accounted for by the direction of the change."

Shunsui hummed, a thought resurfacing that had been submerged in his tide of them since his conversation with the Primera Espada. "But you know… the strength of a Hollow corresponds to the cohesiveness of its identity. The control it has over itself. And at each stage, they become less distinguishable from shinigami."

The jagged smile Kisuke wore split his face. "Right you are. Makes you wonder just how far they could go, doesn't it? Especially if they managed to solve whatever problem made them Hollows in the first place."

It wouldn't be enough for the Central 46. But it was something—and Shunsui thought he might be able to use that something.

* * *

Visiting the Eighth was such a strange feeling. It was still the most familiar place in all of Soul Society to Shunsui, even if he'd spent quite a lot of time trying to avoid his work here. It wasn't just the visuals, either—something about coming back to these reiatsu signatures was…

Not quite home, exactly. Too many of the people that meant the most to him were scattered around, or long gone. But this was the center of it. He suppressed his own spiritual pressure; while he'd have to come back and say hello to the rest of the division at some point, there were a couple of people in particular he wanted to see right now.

A single _shunpō_ step put him in front of the office building, and a quick jump propelled him to the window. It was already open, he noted, and he slid it aside the rest of the way, dropping inside quietly.

Not quietly enough to escape the notice of the two shinigami in the office, though.

"Nanao-chan, Ishida-kun. How nice to see you."

The looks on their faces—only mild surprise, slight suspicion—were nearly the same. Shunsui didn't have to put any effort into smiling; it just happened on its own. It looked like Ishida had brought in a portable desk of some kind, putting the front of it up against the front of Nanao's, the stack of work between them no doubt much diminished from its former size.

"Sōtaichō," Nanao replied, her expression morphing until the tinge of hurt distinguished it easily from Ishida's. "Shouldn't you be working?"

Shunsui's smile faded. "Aren't I allowed to come see how the Eighth is doing without me?" he inquired, keeping the query frothy and careless.

Typical Shunsui allowed for typical Nanao to reassert herself, and she scoffed slightly under her breath. "Much the same as it did with you, since you never did any work. I hope you are not troubling Sasakibe-fukutaichō."

"Yare, yare," Shunsui replied, taking a seat at his old desk. It had been cleaned, of course, but it remained otherwise untouched. That Ishida had brought in another rather than either of them using this one said a great deal more to him than the waspish tone of Nanao's voice.

Ishida cleared his throat. "We are managing," he said, a touch more kindly. "How are things at the First?"

"Oh, probably about what you're thinking." Shunsui made a show of tipping his chair backwards onto the rear legs only, pulling his hat a little forward and studying the both of them from beneath the brim of it. "It was Yama-jii's division, so everything's just so. And the offices are so _stuffy_. And very far away from my house." He sighed theatrically. "I miss it around here already."

Nanao dropped her eyes; Ishida clearly noticed from the corner of his. Abruptly, he stood. "I'll go make tea. Please excuse me." He exited calmly, but there was no mistaking it for anything but the deliberate absence it was.

Shunsui would have to thank him later.

"Nanao-chan," he began, but she cut him off with a sharp shake of her head.

"Don't. I'm sorry. I should not have been cross with you. You've lost—" She gestured, either unwilling or unable to finish the sentence.

She was not and had never been especially good with expressing the softer emotions. That was part of why he goaded her so much; he wanted her to be comfortable telling him what she really thought and felt, even when it was anger or something negative. But Nanao did not find irritation half as negative as vulnerability, and he took such care with their interactions that he'd never been willing to risk pushing it. Shunsui knew exactly where her boundaries were, and he respected them, even while he tried to persuade her to move them. It was a delicate process, and he couldn't afford to be careless with it.

So he finished the statement in a way he knew she'd find acceptable. "We've all lost things, Nanao-chan. War does that. You don't have to worry about being cross with me." He'd rather her anger than nothing.

She nodded once, tightly, staring at the form in front of her without really seeing it.

He knew that was as much as he was going to get on that topic, for now. So he switched to a new one. "Ishida-kun—he's been helping you with the backlog?"

She released a soft breath. "Yes. He did so even from the hospital while he was recovering. I almost didn't allow him to, but—there was more to do than I could manage by myself, and he claimed to be bored regardless. He has been most helpful."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Do you think he could do the job you do, Nanao-chan? Be the fukutaichō of a division?"

She blinked, turning to meet his eyes. "I believe so, sir, but considering that a captain would have to choose him for the spot, I find it unlikely that he would get such an offer."

"What about a division without a captain?"

It was Nanao's turn to hum. Shunsui had set a logistical problem in front of her, and so she endeavored to put together what she knew and advise him on the matter as well as possible. Thumbing through a sheaf of handwritten notes, she paused a few times to read, a little line appearing between her brows when she furrowed them. The desire to smooth it away with his thumb arose—he was very good at quashing such things.

"I don't recommend the Eleventh. Ishida-san is an admirable person in many ways, but his pride would clash with their tendency to say whatever comes to mind first and make a fight out of anything possible." Shifting that page aside, Nanao clicked her tongue against the side of her teeth. "I suppose the Seventh is feasible, given the character of that division, but—"

"Don't worry about the Seventh. I've already got a solution in mind for them," Shunsui said.

Nanao nodded, still focused on the papers in front of her. "None of the other divisions currently require a fukutaichō."

"How would he do as fukutaichō of the Eighth, Nanao-chan?"

Her head snapped up. He could see the question forming behind her eyes, but she clamped down on it, maintaining her professionalism even in the face of something that could be quite unpleasant for her indeed.

As though he'd ever replace her.

"He would… do exceptionally well, sir. Ishida-san is familiar with the division, well-respected by even the higher seats, and has by now learned most of what he would need to know to execute the administrative portion of the responsibilities. You, of course, would know his combat capabilities better than I do." She straightening in her chair, folding her hands into her lap.

"I do not believe that was merely a hypothetical question, sir."

Shunsui shook his head. "No, Nanao-chan, it wasn't." He reached between the layers of his uniform, extracting a folded piece of paper and handing it to her.

Nanao took it with trembling fingers, opening it carefully and using her palm to smooth the creases out against her desk. "This is—this is a fukutaichō appointment form? For the First Division?" The furrow deepened, and she lifted her eyes back up to meet his. "Is Sasakibe-fukutaichō being promoted?"

"No, he was quite insistent that he wanted to continue doing his former job." Well, not so much 'insistent on' as just 'obviously preferred', but when you read body language in the course of every conversation, they got more difficult to keep apart.

"But then…?"

"He will keep doing it. But there's a lot more to do, Nanao-chan. I'm not Yama-jii, and I don't intend to be. A lot of things are changing. And they're going to keep changing, for all of us. I need your help to make that happen. So I want you to keep being my fukutaichō, at the First." Shunsui's tone remained steady, almost as professional as hers. She didn't need to know just how true his words were, or in just how many senses. That was something he wasn't ready to share with her, and he suspected it was not something that she was yet ready to hear, either.

"Two fukutaichō is very irregular, sir," she said, quietly rather than with the crispness he'd have expected.

She wasn't wrong, he knew. "So it is. But it's my right as captain to decide how my division is structured, and this is how I'm choosing to structure it. If you agree, that is."

"Of course I agree," she replied, perhaps a little too quickly.

It made him smile again, though, and he let the front legs of the chair hit the floor before he stood. "I'm glad, Nanao-chan."

* * *

Renji's message was quite direct, and earlier than Shunsui had expected.

 _I'll do it. But I want Kurosaki for my fukutaichō_.

Fortunately, _which_ Kurosaki was obvious from context. Shunsui sent the same jigokuchō back not a minute later.

 _Of course. Your bankai demonstration is in three weeks._

* * *

 _Six weeks after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

There was no one to hear him sigh, but Shunsui did it anyway.

Six captaincies to fill. Renji and Yoruichi made two. But Renji's move meant there was another open fukutaichō position. Well, that wasn't as bad. Byakuya could take his time appointing someone to it, since the decision was his and the Sixth was one of the most stable divisions in the Gotei 13. Less so, since they were about to lose their vice-captain and just-promoted sixth seat, now that Karin's leave had ended. But that wouldn't be too much, he didn't think.

That was the Seventh handled. But where to put Yoruichi? Shunsui tapped his fingers on his desk. "Nanao-chan?" he called. She and Chōjirō shared the office next door, for the moment.

"Yes, taichō?" Unlike her counterpart, Nanao did not wait around for him to give her permission to enter. They'd shared an office for so long it would have been absurd.

"I'm going to put Yoruichi-san in either the Third, the Fifth, or the Ninth. Which do you think would be best?" She was a proven leader, and very good with people, which meant he was comfortable giving her one of the divisions in serious need of that, the ones whose reputations as well as manpower had suffered. He hadn't wanted to make Renji captain over any of the people he considered his peers, but that wasn't going to be a problem here.

Nanao considered that, frowning slightly. "The Fifth," she said at last.

"Momo-san's division? Why that one in particular?"

"Because Hinamori-fukutaichō is still not quite… _over_ the influence Aizen had on her life. That is no failing of hers, but it does mean that her comfort levels are likely to remain higher if her new captain does not in any way resemble him. I believe, from what little I know of Yoruichi-san, that her informal demeanor and playful mannerisms might… help counterbalance the Hinamori's seriousness."

Shunsui grinned at her. "A playful captain's good for a serious subordinate, you think?"

She fixed him with a flat look. "I suspect that Yoruichi-san will occasionally contribute to the effectiveness of her division as well, which is just as necessary, but not a unique feature of how she would fit at the Fifth."

He did have to concede that.

* * *

With nothing yet from any of the Visored, Shunsui was forced to finally make headway on the lingering final option.

And when it came to information about the Espada—not their anatomy or abilities, but who they were as _people_ —there was only one person to ask.

Retsu-san's diminutive assistant kept her half of her office quite tidy, he observed; there was a small bonsai tree on the windowsill, every bit of paper sorted into neat stacks with squared corners, little touches of whimsy making their presence known in the bright-handled brushes and glazed flower vase with what appeared to be a lucky cat face on it. It only had one flower in it at the moment: a very large white camellia, by the look of it.

Whoever shared the office was out; when Shunsui knocked on the doorframe, only one person turned to look who it was; he tried not to smile too obviously when her eyes went even larger than they already were.

"S-Sōtaichō?" She sprang up out of her chair immediately, the legs of it scraping against the floor. She had to reach back to stop it from toppling over, and then there was no helping it—Shunsui chuckled.

Her face pinked, but she kept her composure well, considering, dropping into a bow as though she hadn't just nearly knocked over her own furniture.

"You can relax," he said. "I'm just here to have a chat. Retsu-san says you returned to your duties a couple of days ago?"

"Oh, um—all right. And yes. Thank you, for giving us the leave. I think—I needed it." Her lips pursed, before she startled again and hastened around the desk to pull another chair away from the unoccupied second one in the room's other corner. "Please, um, have a seat."

Shunsui certainly did not miss being a lower-ranking officer. The space was quite small, and shared besides. He felt as though he was taking up quite a lot of it with his sheer dimensions, but there wasn't much to be done about that. Retsu-san hadn't wanted him to call Yuzu to _his_ office, and watching her now, he could understand why.

It wasn't that she was doing anything wrong. But he recognized the lingering traces of war when he saw them, and Yuzu had endured more of the horrors of it than most. He resolved to be as gentle as possible.

"Thank you, Yuzu-san. You can sit down too. It's always a little uncomfortable when one person's sitting and the other is standing, right?"

She nodded, still clearly wary of his presence in her office. Still, she sat, drawing her composure back over herself like a cloak or the blue and white scarf she wore over her shihakushō. Her hands came up to the surface of the desk, where she folded them neatly over each other, lacing her fingers and expelling a soft breath. "What did you want to talk to me about, Sōtaichō?"

"Well," Shunsui replied, softening his tone even further. "I was hoping you might be able to tell me a little bit about some friends of yours."

"Friends?" she asked. "You mean like Uryū—er, Ishida-san?" She was searching his expression now, waiting for him to betray some hint of his intentions. He had the feeling that she wasn't half-bad at it.

Shunsui shook his head, easing back into the chair. It creaked slightly beneath his weight, the sound almost too loud even with the hum of divisional life filtering in from the outside. "No, no—I know quite a lot about Ishida-kun myself, though not as much as you do, I expect." He brought his hands into sleeves and lowered them so they rested on his lap. "Actually, I meant to ask after your friends in Hueco Mundo. The Arrancar."

She processed the request carefully, her eyes falling to her desk for a moment. "I think," she said, lips pursing momentarily, "that how much I will be able to help you depends on what you want to know. Most of the information is in my report."

"That's true," he agreed amiably. "But what I'm looking for is information about their personalities. About who they are when they aren't fighting anything at all."

She tilted her head at him. "They're always fighting something," she replied, tone certain but still reserved. "Just like all of us."

Shunsui blinked, honestly surprised by that. "I think you're probably right about that, Yuzu-san. Perhaps I should say: I want to know about who they are when they're with you."

* * *

Argh. Apologies, all: this would have been up last night (and was indeed up on AO3 then), but FF was refusing to accept my uploads for some reason. Anyway, it's here now. I hope you enjoyed.


	3. Chapter Three: Tertium

.

* * *

 _Lacunae_

A Bleach Fanfic

 _Chaos Theory_ AU

Chapter Three: Tertium

* * *

"You want to ask _Arrancar_ to be captains of the Gotei 13?"

Nanao's skepticism was understandable, really. Shunsui intended to make use of it. His eyes tracked her as she stood, folding her arms beneath her chest and pacing from one end of the office to the other, passing between himself and Jūshirō. The other man was seated at one of the armchairs—he looked a little wan, but there was no coughing as of yet. He seemed mostly content with his tea, even if his best friend would never quite understand how he could tolerate the powdered green stuff.

"Well… yes, actually," Shunsui replied. "We've got vacant captaincies to fill, and even if Love-san does eventually agree to take one of them, we're still short." He scratched absently along the line of his jaw, the rasp of his whiskers loud in his ears for a moment before it receded.

She halted in her steps, fixing him with an incredulous stare. Nanao was used to strange ideas from him, but no doubt this one topped the list easily.

If he could convince her, though, Shunsui would know he had an argument with sound logic, which was going to be a solid first step in getting the Central 46 to agree to his plans. Granted, _all_ it would take him to convince Nanao was logic, which could not be said of the sages, who were also going to need a dose of fear and a reminder of some key facts that they seemed to be forgetting in their sudden turn of fortune.

But timing was everything, and Shunsui knew he had to start at the beginning if any of the rest of that was going to work.

"They're _Hollows,_ " Nanao replied, as if that was counterargument enough on its own.

She wasn't entirely wrong, by the conventional understanding of 'Hollow.'

Moving his hand back and down, Shunsui rubbed at his nape. "Not exactly. According to Kisuke-san, there isn't really much difference between an Arrancar and a Visored."

There were a number of ways that fact could be tilted, but he was counting on Nanao to find the most disadvantageous to his goal. She did not disappoint him.

"That's the opposite of reassuring, sir. Considering what the majority of the Arrancar were like, that leads me to believe that if anything, the Visored should not be trusted either." He watched her fight with the implications of that, knowing that what she said applied to someone she'd deeply admired in her childhood. Applied to people who had once been comrades, however close or distant. It was, he knew, a very difficult thing for anyone to do, himself included. But her professionalism and duty won out, as they always did, and she hardened herself to the application of her own reasoning.

"In either case, even besides the simple matter of the fact that they are at least partially Hollows, both groups have obvious risks associated with their presence in the Seireitei." Nanao pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, resuming her pacing.

"Oh? And what are those, Nanao-chan?"

"You know what they are, taichō." She pressed her lips together in a thin line.

Shunsui sat back in his chair, folding his arms into his sleeves. "Tell me anyway."

A sharp sigh followed. "The Arrancar have no reason to like the Gotei 13. No reason to be loyal to it. Even if we assume the ones remaining were with Aizen only due to coercion, there's no cause to suspect they'll care about any of the same things we do. No cause to suspect they'll obey any order that they don't want to."

Jūshirō's throat cleared gently behind her; Nanao immediately stepped sideways so that she was triangulated between them.

"If we're making every possible argument against the idea, it's worth mentioning that the case might be even worse for the Visored in that respect. At best, an Arrancar might be upset with us for killing a comrade in war, or dislike us on abstract principle, but we were enemies. That's expected." He traced the rim of his teacup with a finger.

"…but the Visored see themselves as _betrayed_ by Soul Society," Nanao finished, a troubled furrow appearing between her brows. "If we're talking about possibilities… they have more reason for active grudges against it. And if there's one thing Aizen taught all of us, it's that those grudges can be hidden very well, and for a very long time."

Shunsui felt his mouth turn up at one corner. She was absolutely right of course, and all of these were no doubt arguments that the Central 46 would use, when the time came. So he had to see if what he had could move her from that position.

"Isn't it the same with anyone, though?" he asked, rolling his shoulders back into a more comfortable position. The pink silk of his kimono slid against his haori with a heavy rustle. "Think of Ishida-kun. If we'd excluded people from the Gotei 13 just because they had some basis for a grudge against us… Aizen might have won the war. And _he_ was from the ranks. Nothing about him raised any flags when he joined." There just wasn't any reason to believe that they could predict that kind of thing from someone's background—and while it might have been a stretch to extend that all the way to the Espada, well…

They were going to have to.

"You won't have much luck getting the Central 46 to see it that way," Nanao replied, pursing her lips and shaking her head.

"Maybe not," he agreed, unfolding his arms and standing. There was a whiteboard set up against the wall next to his desk; something he'd borrowed from Retsu's division. "But I think I can make them see is that there isn't a choice." He turned the thing on its wheels to better face his two-person audience-slash-accomplices.

The truth was laid out in a grid pattern on the board, stark empty spaces perforating what should have been a mostly-uniform recitation of divisions, captains, and vice-captains.

1\. Kyōraku. Ise, Sasakibe.  
2\. Suì-Fēng. Ōmaeda.  
3\. [_]. Kira.  
4\. Unohana. Kotetsu.  
5\. Shihōin. Hinamori.  
6\. Kuchiki. [_].  
7\. Abarai. Kurosaki.  
8\. [_]. Ishida.  
9\. [_]. Hisagi.  
10\. Hitsugaya. Matsomoto.  
11\. [_]. Madarame?  
12\. Kurotsuchi. Kurotsuchi.  
13\. Ukitake. Kuchiki.

Shunsui studied it, and he knew Nanao did, too. He knew she felt the weight of the open spots as keenly as he did. The Gotei 13 couldn't function like this—they'd had enough trouble being without three captains for half a decade. The Central 46 wouldn't allow a situation like that again, and in that much at least, he thought they were wise. Especially with what was still to come, at some indefinite moment in the future. One he hoped he could prepare them all for.

"Even if Isshin-san agrees to take one of the remaining posts, there's three others to fill. At most, one Visored qualified for a captaincy will return. That's still two."

"Is there really no one else in the Gotei already to fill those spots?"

She knew there wasn't, and she knew why. Shunsui took this to mean he was winning her over, if slowly.

"No one both willing and qualified."

Nanao exhaled in a gust. "What about Urahara-san?" she tried.

Shunsui shook his head. "He doesn't want to be anywhere Central 46 could meddle with his plans. I think that's probably for the best." Whatever those plans were, they'd be completely necessary eventually. That much was just… reliably true when it came to Kisuke. "And it's highly unlikely that anyone new manages to get bankai in time to fill these positions."

It was highly unlikely that any given shinigami would attain bankai in _general_ , which made that intuitive leap easy to make. Shunsui would have liked to find a solution to this problem that wasn't so risky, but there weren't any. He was convinced of it.

"You can't possibly be considering that Arrancar who almost _killed_ Ishida-san—"

"No." Shunsui's answer was immediate. "No, not him."

There were a number of good reasons for that. Though Shunsui did take some offense to the fact that Cifer had tried to kill his tenth seat, it _was_ a war. More important than that was what he'd heard from Yuzu. She'd been gentle about it, her assessment rose-colored in the way only friendship could make it, but she'd also been realistic and honest. Taking what she'd said with what was written in Uryū's report and what he'd seen on surveillance footage of the fight, he'd put together a picture of the Cuarta's psychology.

The worries Nanao had about loyalty and cause were more relevant in his case then either of the others. That Arrancar was a nihilist—and probably a fatalist, too—and it was difficult to get and keep leverage over people like that. All three of the defectors from Aizen's army had the same obvious weakness. The other two would react to that weakness being exploited in ways Shunsui could easily predict. Cifer might escape that kind of manipulation by disregarding it.

Really, the calculation he was making wasn't that different from one he imagined Aizen would have made at some point—to different results, but still. It brought him no satisfaction to know that, but he wouldn't deny it to make himself feel better.

At least the point of _his_ plan was to see everyone happy and no worse for wear.

"Then which?"

"I think our best bet is the Primera." Shunsui tipped his hat back, turning to face the others. Though the motivation behind Starrk's betrayal of Aizen had been just as singular as Cifer's, he'd had a certain decency about him—something Shunsui had been able to read for himself. And really, 'baseline decency' was already a higher bar than some of the people _in_ the Gotei 13 managed to clear.

Nanao hummed. "I suppose." She could bring no footage or assessment to bear against the idea besides the sheer fact that he was a Hollow who'd once worked for Aizen—and that wasn't quite enough to knock down the suggestion anymore.

"And, well—there's another complication." Shunsui suppressed half a smile. "I had a discussion with Ikkaku-san and Yumichika-san the other day. Kenpachi-san was defeated in battle by Grimmjow-san. They both want him for the next captain of the division, and technically, he qualifies."

Nanao pinched the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses. "Unbelievable."

Jūshirō _did_ smile, lifting his shoulders in a soft shrug. "Is it, though? It sounds very much like the Eleventh to me."

"Ugh. No, I suppose you're right." With another sigh, Nanao crossed her arms tightly, frowning at the board. "But technically, two hundred people or the whole division have to witness the match, whichever number is smaller. It doesn't count otherwise."

Shunsui blinked—he did seem to recall some caveat like that, now that she mentioned it. "Would a video recording qualify, Nanao-chan?"

She considered that a moment. "I don't believe anything in the text of the law prohibits it. But you'll want to make sure they all see it _before_ you take this to Central 46."

"What's this?" Shunsui asked, lilting his voice until it was almost singsong. "Nanao-chan wants to ask _Arrancar_ to be captains of the Gotei 13?"

She leveled him with an unimpressed stare. Oh, that was a cold one, too—particularly advanced in her repertoire. Shunsui grinned back at her.

"No. I don't. I still think this idea is ridiculous, but that's not important."

"No?" he echoed. "I think Nanao-chan's opinion is very important."

Nanao rolled her eyes and shook her head, a few strands of hair falling loose from her clip. "I'm sure you do, sir. But Central 46 is only going to care about whether your proposal is _legal_. And that, I can help with."

"Clever Nanao-chan." He shrouded the genuine praise in his most obsequious tone of voice.

Predictably, she glared at him. "Someone has to be."

Jūshirō chuckled.

All was right with the world.

* * *

"You haven't changed anything, I see."

Retsu drifted over the threshold into the office, studying it as though she hadn't been in it countless times before. Shunsui supposed she had reason to—and her observation was accurate. Aside from moving a couple of chairs from the back near the bookshelves up to the area in front of the desk, he'd kept it exactly as Yama-jii had left it. Even the chairs were only a practical concession; he'd had so many meetings in here in the last couple of months he'd lost lost track of the exact number.

"It's too stuffy, I know. Maybe I'll have a chance to change some of the things in here once I'm done with everything out there." Shunsui waved a hand vaguely to indicate the outside.

She smiled, small and sharp. "I don't think you'll ever be done with everything out there."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Retsu-san." He knew that wasn't really what she'd meant, but he pretended it was. The other conversation was one he didn't really want to have right now. Becoming convinced his effort was ultimately useless was not a good way to keep himself thinking it was worth keeping at.

Her smile softened slightly. She sank into one of the chairs with the sort of effortless grace that most people just weren't capable of. "My apologies, Shunsui-san. I'm allowing my cynicism to get away from me." With the same grace, she folded her hands into her lap, back straight and head high.

He could sympathize, really. Shunsui figured that was one of the reasons he and Jūshirō had been friends for so long: for all that time had worn them both down, Jūshirō managed _not_ to end up in that particular trap.

"Well actually Retsu-san, at the moment I'm kind of counting on that."

She was small enough that in order to make eye contact with him, she had to look up quite a distance. Rather than tilting her chin, she studied him through the fan of her lashes. Though most versions of that expression were coy, Retsu's was always something else—her eyes were her tell, and she knew it. Obscuring them like that made her harder to read, even for him.

"Is that so? And to what purpose would you utilize my cynicism, Sōtaichō?"

Realism, frankly put. "I wanted to get your opinion on Yuzu Kurosaki's mental state," he said, much more bluntly than he usually would. There were some things that really needed to be unambiguous, and this was important enough to be one of them. "I know you've cleared her to return from leave, but I have a request to make of her that's a lot more than just that."

Retsu sat back a little, relaxing into the armchair and narrowing her eyes. "You want her to return to Hueco Mundo, I take it?"

He didn't ask her how she knew. "Yes. But not if she can't handle it." Shunsui was willing to sacrifice a lot to make sure that things went the way he wanted them to, but he wasn't going to do anything unnecessary. If Yuzu wasn't in the right shape for this, he'd just have to find some other way to make it happen.

"The war hurt her," Retsu replied. "It hurt a lot of people, but perhaps her most of all. One does not endure forty days as Sōsuke Aizen's prisoner and emerge unscathed. However—" she precluded his question by uncurling one finger and raising it to halt his words. "She's quite resilient. While I was initially concerned that her perception of what had happened to her was… warped, I have found that her assessment of events is quite realistic."

That tracked with what he'd observed as well, though of course Shunsui understood that he didn't know her nearly as well as Retsu did. It was encouraging to hear. "So if I were to ask her to help me convince two of them to do something rather unusual, she'd be able to do it?"

Retsu inclined her head. "Yes—I do believe she would."

* * *

 _Eight Weeks after the Battle of Fake Karakura Town_

There wasn't a lot of time left.

Yesterday, Shunsui had received both good news and bad news. On the good side, his talk with Isshin had gone well—the older Kurosaki was willing to return to the Gotei. Love had agreed to come back, too, though he and Hachi were the only Visored even remotely interested. The bad news, however, was that the Central 46 were growing impatient: they had summoned him to the chambers for an update tomorrow, which meant he had to have everything in place before then. If he brought them anything other than a fully-formed, fully-argued, and fully-legal proposal, they'd feel quite comfortable rejecting parts of it out of hand, he was quite certain.

So today, he stood in the large courtyard with the Senkaimon, flanked by its Kidō Corps guards. As he was traveling to Hueco Mundo, however, it was Akon from the Twelfth Division who was in charge of transport. Unless and until the kidō were developed for shinigami to open garganta, it would have to be that way.

Of course, dropping themselves smack in the middle of the Hollow realm was not exactly the world's least-risky plan, so even though Shunsui was confident in his power, he wasn't being stupid. In addition to himself and Yuzu, he'd asked along a couple of the captains who had previous experience in the place: specifically, Retsu and Byakuya.

Though the latter was no doubt skeptical of the plan, he'd agreed to come along anyway. Some people were like that about duty and things, Shunsui supposed. Being Sōtaichō meant people did what he asked them to, for the most part.

With a soft _aha_ from Akon, the garganta split space in front of them, yawning open like a giant mouth. Shunsui had seen them before, of course, but he'd never gone through one until today. New experiences were rare for him.

"Well, here goes," he said, shrugging and stepping inside first.

It didn't take him long to figure out the trick—though it was dim enough that he almost couldn't see, he was unperturbed. Spending enough time literally in shadows tended to make the dark more of a friend than an enemy. He pushed his reiatsu out in front of him, forming a solid path towards the pinprick of light in the distance. The others did the same, Retsu and Byakuya taking up flank positions and Yuzu trailing behind.

They landed within Las Noches itself, under the broken dome with its strange illusion of daytime sky. Shunsui suspected that it wouldn't be long before someone came to meet them, so he used the opportunity to look around a bit. There was even more bright white here than in the Seireitei, probably mostly because this place didn't have so much as a tree to break up the monochrome. Frowning, he pulled his hat down a little to shade his eyes.

If darkness was a familiar friend…

Many of the buildings looked like residences, though he wasn't sure who they were supposed to be for. Most Hollows were too much instinct and not enough identity to make use of them, and though he could sense a few reiatsu signatures of varying strength around, it wasn't nearly enough for all the buildings.

He wondered if Aizen hadn't planned to make enough Arrancar to fill them, someday, though that didn't seem quite right to him. Perhaps this place had existed long before him, anyway.

Tearing his eyes from the big palace in the center, Shunsui fixed them on the spot where he sensed Starrk about to land out of _sonído._ Sure enough, he appeared a moment later, solidly, as though materializing from thin air, eyes searching.

Wisely, Shunsui did not at first attempt to say anything, glancing instead at Yuzu, whose face broke into a wide, wholly genuine smile.

"Starrk-san!" She ran the few yards necessary to reach him, saying something slightly too quiet for Shunsui to catch.

Starrk nodded, presumably by way of reply, and slid his hands from his pockets. Yuzu half-jumped at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and clenching her hands in the white fabric at his back. Shunsui grinned when he returned the hug with much more delicacy—he was afraid of hurting her. That was a good sign.

"Yuzu," he replied, his tone caught in a rasp somewhere between awe, and—of all things—warmth. He didn't smile, exactly, but it was easy to notice in his eyes: a certain softness that only got put there by dear people.

Everyone else was respectfully quiet until they parted, at which point Starrk took a moment to move his attention from one end of their formation to the other. He nodded slightly at Shunsui.

"Kyōraku-san. I can't say I expected to see you here." Starrk's hand remained loosely atop one of Yuzu's shoulders, his fingers curled slightly into her kosode.

Shunsui removed his wrist from the tsuka of Katen Kyōkotsu, folding both hands into his sleeves instead. "Well, I can't really blame you for that," he replied, bobbing his head agreeably. "But the truth is, I've come to ask you something."

* * *

"I don't believe it." Nanao frowned down at the yellowed pages of the thick book on the table in front of her.

"What is it, Ise-san?" Jūshirō set a cup of tea down next to her mostly-untouched dinner, retaining the one in his other hand for himself.

Though this was technically work and she'd protested that it ought to be done in the office, the lateness of the hour and the necessity of finishing the legal briefs tonight had persuaded her to move the task to Jūshirō's family home, Ugendō. He had a rather nice library, which was good for reference since the Daireishokairō wasn't available.

Shunsui set down the book he'd been holding above his face, sitting up and folding his legs under him.

"It's just… the actual wording of the law that they made to reflect the precedent set in the Visored case—there's a hole in it."

"Fitting," Shunsui muttered darkly, gesturing to his chest area.

Nanao was unimpressed by the pun, but Jūshirō snorted, lifting a hand to conceal his smile.

" _Anyway_ ," she continued, deciding to ignore him, "the text of the edict says only that shinigami are prevented from—and I quote— _attaining or attempting to attain Hollow-like powers_."

"You don't think they'd count Hollow powers as Hollow-like?" Jūshirō asked, frowning as he settled in his seat across the table.

Nanao hummed. "They probably would, but in any case that's not the loophole I meant."

It clicked. Kisuke had already said it, in a way:

 _There's nothing different between Arrancar and Visored that can't be accounted for by the direction of the change._

"The rule is against shinigami obtaining Hollow powers," he said, "but they were Hollows first. They never had to _attain_ those powers at all—they're innate."

"That's… very tenuous," Jūshirō replied with a frown. The expression was a thoughtful one, though, and he lifted his tea to his mouth with narrow eyes.

"Anything we could try to use is tenuous," Nanao replied. "At best, we have absences and gaps in the law to work with. Strictly interpreted, the Arrancar are not shinigami who attained Hollow powers. They are Hollows—with innate Hollow abilities—who obtained shinigami powers. That, by this edict, is _not_ illegal."

That was good enough for Shunsui. "We'll put it in the brief, then," he declared. "It won't help us any with Love-san and Hachi-san's cases, but considering that what happened to them is now known to be Aizen's fault, I'm expecting a bit more leniency for them than for Coyote-san or Grimmjow-san."

It wasn't the brief that would decide his success or failure. The legality of what he was proposing was the Central 46's to decide, and they could overturn precedent if they really wanted to. But having it would show them that he took the laws and procedures seriously enough to justify his choices legally. The real work would be in convincing them of the necessity of his interpretations—and Jūshirō's and Nanao's, though Shunsui was the one who'd be presenting them as his own.

Essentially the brief would open the door for the sages, whether they wanted it open or not.

The job of pushing them over the threshold would come down to him.

"You should get some sleep, Shunsui. Ise-san and I can finish the technical work. _We_ don't have to deal with them in the morning." Jūshirō made a face; it was only a mild distaste that flickered over his features, but from him that was a lot.

"He's right, sir. We are perfectly capable of handling this."

Shunsui blinked, then leaned back until he was on the floor again. "It's a strange day when Nanao-chan tells me to sleep _more_ ," he observed, picking his hat up in one large hand and setting it partway over his face to blot out the light.

The last thing he heard before drifting off was her reply:

"Don't get used to it, taichō."

* * *

35 really had it out for him.

Shunsui honestly couldn't be sure why that was. It could have been impersonal—quite possibly, 35 was just particularly committed to controlling the second Sōtaichō in a way none of his predecessors had really been able to control the first. It could also be a family matter. Though the sages and judges were elevated in status by virtue of their appointment to the Central 46, they still had families and histories, and almost all of them came from nobility, where rivalries and bitterness were common. It might have been the _Kyōraku_ part rather than the _Sōtaichō_ part that had his dander up.

Either way, it was really getting tiring.

Not that Shunsui could afford to act like it. "As the briefing says, Seijin-san, there's nothing illegal about appointing an Arrancar to a captaincy."

They'd hit him with everything, in sequence: his choice to have two fukutaichō (his right as a captain), Shihōin's never-overturned sentence (handed to her in the first place on false premises), Isshin's status as a deserter (mitigating circumstances and his crucial help in the Winter War went a long way to making up for that), Love and Hachi (yes, they technically violated a law, but the edict in question existed as a result of their case and not before it—and their case was complicated by Aizen), and, of course, the Arrancar.

They'd approved Renji, at least, but everything else was apparently still up in the air, and they'd been here for _three days_ , with minimal breaks between sessions.

Shunsui really wished he was drinking on Jūshirō's engawa right now. Or teasing Nanao. Or writing his novel. Or sleeping. Or sparring with Ishida. Hell, he'd take _paperwork_ if it would get him out of these chambers.

"Only because it should be patently obvious that a Hollow cannot be a shinigami!" 35 replied, trying for thunderous but coming off mostly as posturing. But then, most of them were.

A few seemed to understand where he was coming from on this, but none of them had yet expressed open support. They were all afraid to be the first. All afraid that if this went belly-up, they'd get the blame for it after everyone had taken their pound of flesh from Shunsui and still wasn't satisfied.

The obvious solution was to give them something to fear even more.

"You have my proposal, gentlemen," Shunsui said lightly, spreading his arms with his palms facing upward in an innocent gesture. "These are the resources at my disposal. The only ones. Now, if you'd rather trust in your ability to protect yourselves next time we're short some captains and have to face an enemy of Aizen's caliber or worse, well… that's certainly your prerogative. I'm just here to follow orders." He shrugged, diffident and casual, as though he hadn't just essentially implied that this was do or die.

It was, of course, but he was going to let their imaginations do the work on that one.

There was a long silence. 2 broke it.

"What measures do you suggest to ensure that bringing these Arrancar into Soul Society will be safe for its citizens? Hollows are not known for their restraint—it is difficult to understand how they could be so ordinary as you say."

Finally. Something he could use.

"I'm not suggesting they're _ordinary_ , Seijin-san. Only that they can be controlled. Have self-control, in fact. You saw the recording of Zaraki-san's fight with Grimmjow-san. If anything, Grimmjow-san was the more contained of the two." Not that this was saying much, considering the other half of the comparison, but if he could get them to be _less_ afraid of the Arrancar than they had been of Kenpachi, it might be just enough.

"Well enough, perhaps, but they're still Hollows. More assurance is necessary than that."

Shunsui dipped his chin. "Naturally. As part of our attempt to integrate our new recruits with the rest of the Gotei 13, we thought a probation period seemed reasonable. When they get here, they'll be put under the supervision of one of the other captains. After they meet their divisions and learn their jobs, that supervision will gradually taper off. The supervising captains will report directly to me—and of course I'll send you copies of those reports."

Possibly redacted ones, but Shunsui knew how to pick his truths.

"That seems reasonable, given the circumstances."

Shunsui suppressed the desire to roll his eyes. "Thank you, Seijin-san. I thought so, too."

Since 2 was a judge, 35 didn't feel comfortable contradicting him directly, though Shunsui could tell that not all of them were won over.

"Exactly what placements are you proposing? It would not do to destabilize weakened divisions further." That was 19.

Frankly, Shunsui thought they could butt out of that part of the process. "Of course not. The divisions that have been the longest without a captain will be getting experienced shinigami to fill the posts. The Arrancar would be posted with the Eleventh and the Eighth."

"And their fukutaichō?"

"Well, every captain does have a right to choose their own, of course." Shunsui sighed under his breath. "But at this point, Madarame-san and Ishida-san are both functional in those capacities, and the divisions are stable. I see no reason to suspect that the Arrancar will have enough preference in the matter to request a change."

He wanted to use their names—calling them the Arrancar wasn't helping the Central 46 see them as people. But it was preferable to Hollows, and Shunsui knew he couldn't afford to look anything other than neutral about this. His decisions were tactical, and they had to come across that way, too, or he'd lose whatever credibility he'd been able to build up here.

"Very well. We will break to discuss this matter amongst ourselves. Do not travel far, Sōtaichō."

* * *

When his proposal was returned to him three hours later, it was with the official seal of the Soul King stamped across the front page.

Shunsui's mouth curled into a smile.

* * *

 _Proposed Rota of the Gotei 13, Taichō:_

 _1\. Kyōraku, Shunsui_  
 _2\. Suì-Fēng_  
 _3\. Aikawa, Rabu_  
 _4\. Unohana, Retsu_  
 _5\. Shihōin, Yoruichi_  
 _6\. Kuchiki, Byakuya_  
 _7\. Abarai, Renji_  
 _8\. Starrk, Coyote_  
 _9\. Kurosaki, Isshin_  
 _10\. Hitsugaya, Tōshirō_  
 _11\. Jaegerjaquez, Grimmjow_  
 _12\. Kurotsuchi, Mayuri_  
 _13\. Ukitake, Jūshirō_

* * *

 _Term Dictionary_ :

 _Daireishokairō_ – 大霊書回廊 – "Great Spirit Book Gallery." A repository of all the history and knowledge of Soul Society. Access to it is highly restricted. The library is underground; lower floors contain successively more sensitive information.

* * *

Ugh. Sorry this took so long. I had half of it done, then Word went kaput and I lost the whole thing and had to redo it from a blank page. It was traumatic. Anyway.

So in addition to being a glimpse into the lowkey-scary place that is Shunsui's brain, this fic serves as the trunk of the tree, so to speak, for this arc of the AU. A bunch of branches are to follow, so chances are if you thought part of a scene was missing or something was glossed over, that's probably because it's going to appear in more detail in one of those branch fics.

Hopefully, though, y'all are excited for where this is going. I sure am.

Updates may slow down again, as I'm headed back to school this week, but hopefully I won't go months without posting anything this time.

Thanks again for reading; if you're still with the AU at this point… well, you're probably kind of silly. But in a good way. I think.

(I'm kidding; you folks are great.)


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